Stephen Pruett-Jones (Ed.) Hardback https://www.nhbs.com/de/naturalized-parrots-of-the-world-book £ 304 34.99 2021 Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford 9780691204413

Stephen Rutt Hardback https://www.nhbs.com/de/the-eternal-season-book £ 256 14.99 2021 Elliott and Thompson Ltd, London 9781783965731 Mike Toms 

Award-winning documentary film-maker James Aldred spent the spring and summer of 2020 filming Goshawks in the New Forest, his childhood home. This book, presented in an extended diary form, catalogues the author’s time with the Goshawks and many of the Forest’s other inhabitants. The text is punchy, with short, sometimes staccato sentences and delivers a very personal take on these magnificent birds, and much else besides. The diary format means that the text jumps around a bit, presenting the reader with short accounts of other encounters – a swan on the A36, an active Buzzard nest down the slope from where he is filming – so don’t expect a developing central narrative. Having said that, this is still an interesting read, full of closely observed detail of Goshawk behaviour and the world of the wildlife film-maker.This detail reveals an intimacy, formed between the photographer and his subject, which comes across in the text and transports the reader to the hide and the unfolding drama of this Goshawk breeding attempt. This intimacy is perhaps most evident in a passage describing how the author exits the hide at the end of a filming session. Aided by a colleague who walks in below, he has to judge the sitting bird’s response and you can feel the tension growing as he plans his exit under the bird’s fierce glare. It is a wonderful moment, and one of many throughout this engaging book. Book reviewed by Mike Toms 

If you firmly believe that no fox should ever be shot or equally firmly believe that foxes should always be controlled then you may think that this is not a book for you. This is a book full of nuance. Mary Colwell explores predation by talking to people who are actively involved in land management and conservation. She encourages the reader to learn from people trying to face complex conservation challenges which don’t have simple solutions.Beak, Tooth & Claw starts with our cave-dwelling ancestors. This seems strange but it’s the only way of getting back to a time when our ancestors lived with predators – some of which could eat them – and did not have the tools to control their numbers. ‘Civilisation’ has lifted us above the animals and conferred an ability to try to be both masters and stewards of all that we survey.As one might expect of a maker of documentaries, Mary researches her material thoroughly, by talking to witnesses and exploring the evidence that they present. Like a war correspondent, she joins a marksman attempting to deal with a fox insurgency and accompanies a gamekeeper as he checks his Larsen traps and shoots decoyed crows. There are some stranger encounters too, as with a man who has tried to live like a badger and a couple who train corvids for film roles. Alongside these interviews, she describes the recovery of the UK badger population and the control of 3,000 Ravens in Scotland over a four-year period. It’s an interesting mix.I came out of the book feeling that we humans are the problem, as we farm intensively and leave little space for nature to function naturally, feed Red Kites in our gardens, rear an excess of pheasant poults and espouse views of individual species based on characters created by Beatrix Potter.Beak, Tooth & Claw made me question what I thought that I knew about species ranging from seals to wolves. One thing that is clear is that we need to talk more about predation and to be upfront when control is the only way to meet conservation goals. As it says in a BTO report that is quoted in the book, "A polarised and adversarial approach to our understanding of predation only serves to perpetuate the problems".Book reviewed by Graham Appleton

Part travelogue, part memoir, Morgan-Grenville’s book delivers an engaging account of one of our least accessible breeding birds, the Manx Shearwater. The13 chapters are structured around a narrative journey, beginning under the watchful gaze of a grandmother whose strong presence shapes the remainder of the book. The story of the Manx Shearwater, both in its breeding colonies and out on the open ocean, is told in a way that brings together the bird’s ecology with acutely judged but lightly handled human observation. Through this approach we follow the author as he experiences the nocturnal arrivals of shearwaters at their breeding sites and meets the seabird ecologists working to understand this rather enigmatic bird. From the islands of Rum and Skomer, to the Península Valdés in Argentina, Morgan-Grenville’s travels follow those of our Manx Shearwaters as they return to their true home, a life on the wing that takes them across huge distances of ocean. This very well written book, touched with humour and presenting knowledge that is lightly-worn, provides an accessible and engaging introduction to this wonderful bird and to those remote places on the margins of our archipelago where, for a few brief weeks, it is tied to a terrestrial existence.Book reviewed by Mike Toms 

A book by Hendrikus van Hensbergen, the founder Action for Conservation (an organisation getting more young people involved in nature), needs little introduction. Highlighting the lack of participation of young people in conservation, the organisation has helped to inspire others in the field to engage more with the young. The charity has a large following and holds a series of successful events and programmes throughout the year. Action for Conservation was a major influence in the creation of the BTO’s Youth Advisory Panel.You could easily be forgiven for assuming that van Hensbergen would be writing a biography. He certainly has enough experiences to talk about.  Yet, his book is a powerful addition to the work of Action for Conservation, getting young people to realise what they can do to help 'save the planet'.The book acts as a guide to how school age children can create their own campaigns, organise projects and speak to those in power. Van Hensbergen explores the ways in which young people can get involved and, refreshingly, does not sugar-coat the practicalities and compromises needed to get projects off the ground. At the end of the book there are links to many organisations that can help with plans. Speaking from personal experience, the clear guide to places is highly useful in what can sometimes seem like a daunting task.The true selling point of the book is the inspiring case studies of individual actions for conservation. These stories importantly help to make the book seem realistic, enthusing its young readers to think "if they can do it why can’t I?" The individuals range in age, with some young people’s journeys being from the age of 6 to 13 in the case of Louise Chauvet and to others who found nature later, when in secondary school. A few of the stories are especially inspiring due to the exceptional nature of the individuals involved; Helena Gualinga’s challenge to the fossil fuel industry in the Amazon Rainforest springs to mind among many others. Van Hensbergen also does a great job of looking at individuals from communities traditionally underrepresented in the sector and their stories are a positive way of giving these communities a voice. Moreover, the difficult experience referenced by individuals like Dara McAnulty, who faced bullying as an autistic person who was into nature, are particularly special in encouraging others not to let the bullies prevail.If I had any complaint with the book, it would be its format. A larger A4 workbook would be more appealing to read rather than the current large amount of often-squashed large text. A larger format would enable crucial points to be highlighted and allow for annotations, which I feel the current format does not particularly support. As an 'Action' guide it feels disappointing to see the book let down by a conventional format.It would also have been worthwhile for some of the interviews with the young people featured in the book to have been expanded. Overall How You Can Save the Planet is an engaging and thought provoking book and an extremely useful guide for young people keen to get involved in environmental action.Book reviewed by Keir Chauhan 

Just as the May return of our breeding Swifts delivers a feeling of reassurance, so their late summer departure leaves a sense of loss. That loss, repeated each year, now carries the greater weight that comes from knowledge of the decline in UK Swift populations, evident in BTO’s long-term datasets. Sarah Gibson came to Swifts late but is a passionate local advocate for this long-distance traveller, involved in efforts to identify and protect breeding sites and increase awareness. Through this book she recounts her travels across Europe to watch Swifts; from the Little Swifts she encounters in the Spanish seaside town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, to the Alpine Swifts of Saluzzo in Italy. Central to these trips are the encounters with those, like her, who dedicate time to these wonderful birds. Although the text jumps around a little, the book is broadly split into two sections; the first covers Swift behaviour and ecology and the second the encounters with Swifts and those who study them.As you might expect, there is a chapter dedicated to the Swifts that breed in the tower of the Oxford Museum of Natural History, so famously brought to wider attention by David Lack and the film by Derek Bromhall. Other chapters highlight much of the conservation work that is taking place across the UK, from Edward Mayer and Jake Allsop in England to Mark Smyth and others active in Northern Ireland. There is even a short section on what to do if you find a grounded Swift, which basically says don’t do anything – just get it to a Swift rehabilitator. A short series of excellent photographs, including one of Laurent Godel’s dynamic portraits of Swift flights, sits at the centre of the book. Overall an enjoyable read which, while it lacks the compelling narrative of David Lack’s classic on the species or the lyricism of essays by Richard Mabey or Helen Macdonald, delivers an engaging portrait of the world of Swift conservation.Book reviewed by Mike Toms 

Many will know Sam Lee as an award-winning singer, a folk music specialist dedicated to collecting and interpreting Britain’s oral tradition. Some will know him for his work as musical director for RSPB’s ‘Let Nature Sing’, while others will know him through his springtime concert series ‘Singing with Nightingales’, where an audience is led out into darkness of a late spring evening to hear Nightingales and human performers create music in each other’s company, and sometimes together. All three of these ‘Sam’s’ coalesce around an incredible passion and enthusiasm for the (not so) Common Nightingale, something that is evident throughout the book.There is a wonderful richness to this book, both in terms of what it contains and how it is written. The manner in which the book has been set out places it somewhere between a species monograph (though virtually reference free) and nature writing. It is not a straight narrative, in that it contains artwork, illustration and break out sections that occasionally disrupt the flow but more often add to the richness. It has thicker, brighter paper than you would usually see, beautiful endpapers and a stitched in ribbon to mark your page, but no index, and is a wonderful size in the hand when reading.The first few chapters introduce the Nightingale, bringing much of our current (and former) knowledge of the species together in a was that is both easily accessible and engaging to read. Sam Lee weaves personal encounters into the text, drawing you in, posing questions and presenting ideas in an almost conversational manner. In addition to learning about the bird – its behaviour, habitats, migrations and population decline – we also learn about human responses to its song, which goes on to be the main focus of the book.The bulk of the book is dedicated to the cultural impact of the Nightingale, exploring the bird’s role in literature, music, folklore and tradition, not just here in the UK but across cultures and through time. As you might expect, there is reference to John Keats (Ode to a Nightingale), to Beatrice Harrison (the cellist who famously played with these birds in her Oxted garden), to John Clare (The Nightingale’s Nest) and to Greek mythology (Procne and Philomela). However, not only are these particular cultural references explored in more and better detail than usually seen – did you know about D H Lawrence’s witty response to John Keats poem? I didn’t! – but they also form just a small part of a very much wider trove of stories, folklore and song presented with similar authority. Nowhere else is the richness of Nightingale lore presented so eloquently or so completely as it is here.Folk song features strongly, as you might expect from an author who has spent more than a decade learning the old songs from the now diminishing number of families who have kept them alive from one generation to the next. As Sam Lee notes, when it comes to folk song, "the Nightingale tends to reveal more about the culture that is singing about him or her than about the actual nature of the bird." And so we learn not just about the bird, but also about the oral tradition and the singers and communities who have woven the Nightingale into their own stories. One of these communities is the one of which Sam is himself a member, those aware of the tremendous impacts of our activities on this once more common bird and who have used the species as a rallying call to face our environmental crisis head-on. The book ends with a very personal call to action, recognising the need for us all to engage with nature and asking the reader to be present and pause, so that we can "give renewed adoration towards that small, quiet beauty, so hidden from our daily worlds…" This wonderful book not only gives practical advice on how to do this, but it also helps us better understand our connections with the rest of the natural world, and in particular with this very special bird.Book reviewed by Mike Toms 

Tomasz Cofta, photographs by Michal Skakuj Softback https://www.nhbs.com/product?id=250323%3Fbkfno%3D250323&af_id=26943 £ 496 38.00 2021 Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford 9780691177571